‘Cameron’s deal with Europe is just smoke and mirrors’ Let’s put Great back in Britain

THE panto season has just ended in Brussels. Sales were poor for the latest production.

Cameron assured us he would demand a 'fundamental reform of Britain’s relationship with the EU'

Perhaps it was the title, Dave And The Fundamental Reform Of Britain’s Relationship With The EU. Catchy it ain’t. Perhaps it was the “star”, “Dodgy Dave” Cameron. Unlike the supreme pantomime villain Tony Blair he has never quite mastered the art of faking sincerity. Remember Dave’s photocall as new Tory leader 10 years ago, ostentatiously pedalling to the Commons on a bike to curry favour with the greens?

Sadly, the wheels fell off in minutes when we discovered his shoes were being chauffeured behind him in his gas-guzzling government limo. The PM is all spin and no substance. Last week’s deal with Brussels is no different. He assured us he would demand a “fundamental reform of Britain’s relationship with the EU”. The package he has got doesn’t even rise to the level of trivia. Britain is in the middle of an unprecedented immigration crisis.

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We need an Australian pointsbased system to cap the migrant numbers and restrict entry

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Migrants add a city the size of Cardiff to our population every year. In 2010 Cameron pledged to cut it down to “tens of thousands” a year. “No ifs or buts,” he said. What happened? It is up from 175,000 a year to 350,000 and rising. At least half of this is due to the EU. Five hundred million EU citizens now have a legal right to live and work in the UK. Our border isn’t the White Cliffs of Dover but the minarets a few miles from the Bosphorus.

If Cameron had really wanted “a fundamental change in our relationship with the EU” he would have restored Parliament’s power to decide who comes into this country. We need an Australian pointsbased system to cap the numbers and restrict entry to people with essential skills. Cameron didn’t bother to ask. He knew it was a non-starter with our masters in Brussels. Even if he had achieved the impossible and could scrap just migrants’ work-related benefits it wouldn’t dent the vast numbers of EU immigrants.

Romania’s average wage is £350 a month compared with £2,200 in Britain. Six EU countries have average wages of less than a third of the UK’s minimum wage and another eight where they are less than half. Poor people from Eastern Europe don’t come here for benefits: they want to transform their lives through higher paid work. Who can blame them? The rest of Cameron’s deal is just smoke and mirrors.

In fact, it is a bare-faced fraud and he knows it. Dave claims he will end the EU dream of “ever closer union”. Dream on. The Brussels express is still hurtling full-speed ahead towards the terminus of a United States of Europe. The failed single currency has devastated Greece and Spain where youth unemployment exceeds 50 per cent. They are now no more than German economic colonies.

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Five hundred million EU citizens now have a legal right to live and work in the UK

All the big decisions are taken in Frankfurt and Berlin. Against this background Cameron’s claim to have won the day is laughable. He takes us for mugs. Repatriation of powers will never be conceded and that is why we must leave the EU. We would save £55million a day in membership fees for starters. Over just one year that is enough to pay for 70 new hospitals and 300,000 nurses.

We would also get rid of the Common Agricultural Policy which costs every household £1,000 a year extra on food bills. We could scrap the EU’s absurd “green” energy laws which force us to close cheap and efficient coal-fired power stations to rely on expensive and intermittent wind. EU-based energy taxes also add £200 a year to the average household electricity bill. Green taxes also devastate industries like steel, glass, aluminium and concrete.

Migrants clash with police across Europe

Wed, February 15, 2017

Migrants clash with each other in over crowded camps across Europe.

Moroccan Police look at immigrants trying to jump the six-meter-high fence in Ceuta, Spanish enclave on the north of Africa, 09 December 2016.

Tata in Port Talbot has announced 1,000 steel jobs must go. The company is caught in a pincer between artificially high electricity costs and Chinese dumping of subsidised steel. If we hadn’t given away our seat at the World Trade Organisation to the EU we could press for anti-dumping actions. Instead the Welsh government is reduced to pleading with Brussels.

These are all things that a fundamental shift in our relationship with the EU would restore to our Parliament and Government. The House of Commons and Welsh Assembly are eunuchs, impotent in the face of mass immigration, mad energy costs, the destruction of industries and billions of pounds diverted from the NHS and other vital services to pay for Brussels’s profligacy. Let’s get out and put the Great back into Britain.